This made me lol…my 1 yr old has just discovered screaming is fun, so he spends most of his awake time walking around the house screaming… 
You should be proud! Those are amazing numbers - truly. And only 1/2 a g tab…wow.
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Wow, so impressive! Is this still with a basal suspension, one hour before swimming, or two? Do you still take a small bolus before swimming to keep from going too high while off basal?
I’ve been following this thread since I joined and have gotten through about 700 messages or so 
Thank you so much for sharing, and you, too, @Eric, for coaching
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yes, this is with the basal suspension. i turn off my pump 2.5 hours before jumping into the pool. then i swim 1.5 hours (sometimes 2 ), and when i am done i immediately dose myself the amount of basal insulin i have missed while off of it. typically this covers 4 hours of missed basal, so for me that amounts to 2 units.
and yes, i take a small bolus at the same time i turn off my pump. this could be anywhere from .3 to .8 units, depending on what my BG is at the time i am turning off my pump. typically, though, i usually will bolus around .5 units (if my BG is around 100 ).
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@daisymae, thanks for the details! I’m simply amazed you can be off basal that long. You definitely have great numbers, course, swimming uses all of the muscles! So impressive! Thanks so much for taking such good notes and sharing for others to benefit, too. I’ve been wanting to thank you and @Eric, too, for sometime since I started following this thread.
I’m slowly trying to fit some of what you do into my running routines:)
Stay cool:)
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i wasnt certain people were still reading my posts; i used to get a lot more feedback. so, that being said, i am glad that you have been finding this helpful. i hope others are as well, even if they arent chiming in.
i take the obsessive notes so that i will know for myself what has worked and what hasnt. its been helpful to me to be able to refer backwards and look and see if i should bother to try the same thing over again, or move on to something different. i think it took at least 3 months to just figure out the suspended basal time i needed !
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I’m sure others are benefiting from your thread, too. Sorry it took me so long to thank you. I didn’t follow it immediately because I thought swimming was too different from running, swimming being much more difficult, at least for me! But I really appreciate your detailed notes and including all of the background reasoning behind the dosages. I confess, after getting to around message #700, I skipped to the end and read your miraculous numbers, and consistently, too! I’m glad I started at the beginning though so I could see your progress for the past year. So I will try to follow in your footsteps at least a bit for running. Two hour swim is great under any circumstances though, diabetic or not!!
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eric and i have this running joke: b/c my numbers are so controlled during my swim, and i am on NO insulin, that while i am swimming i am NOT diabetic. 
i am glad that my posts and my journey are helpful to you. i guess you could realize how long it has taken me to get to where i am today. it was an education in patience. eric kept daring me with challenges. i was terrified to take them for a while, but once i started seeing progress, i slowly took on more daring challenges. now i trust in him implicitly. he hasnt steered me wrong yet. 
(in fact, he just made me a new challenge to do a really really hard workout for one hour. i dont know if i will be able to do it, but i will try it tomorrow if the pool isnt too crowded. i am nervous about how my BGs will respond, but more curious if i am up to the task. i will report about it tomorrow! )
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I was talking to my husband about this last night (and showing your progress from where you were a year ago - he was very impressed). I would like to exercise regularly - nothing very strenuous; just to be more active - but I get so easily discouraged with various issues I’ve run into. The thought of it potentially taking a year of figuring things out is really daunting. 
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when i started this thread with this goal in mind i had no idea if i could even do it. but i just did what i could do one day at a time. then those days added up. one thing i did know about my body, and YDMV, is that i was very insulin sensitive; if i were going for a walk, i needed to do a temp basal. even if i were just walking for 1/2 hour!!! also, i had to be very clear about not setting unrealistic goals for myself. my first step was to be able to keep my head above the water
PS: if you can walk quickly for 15 minutes thats more than doing nothing. even if you are vacuuming your home, you are being active.
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Thanks. I make jokes often that chasing two toddlers around is all the exercise I need, ha.
I do become very insulin sensitive with any exercise. In fact, I used 10 min walks instead of corrections if I was high after dinner until it got really hot (and even then, I’d sometimes walk circles in my house).
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HORRID NIGHT, TERRIBLE MORNING, APREHENSION , DETERMINATION
EXPERIMENT # 1:
yesterday i kept going low. i would treat with carbs, my BG would
come up, but then w/in an hour, i would sink again. this was the
diabetes part of my day; up, down, up, down. no major crashes, no
spikes, just an annoying PITA. so, with that in mind, i decided to lower
my basal rates. seemed like the logical thing to do, right???
well, overnight, i had to give myself 3 separate injections to keep
my BG in target for my swim today. most people would think i was crazy,
b/c my BGs were like 112 & 114 & 118. but i gave myself micro
doses so that when i woke up my BG was 80. i thought, “great! i’ll eat
bfast and put all that crap behind me and remember to re-raise my basals
'cause that experiment didnt work out very well…i should have just
stuck with letting the carbs keep me from crashing and not futz about
with making basal changes based on one “off” day.”
well, 2.5 hours after bfast bolus, my BG had spiked to 170. OMG. what
was i going to do? this was really going to mess up my swim plans.
should i give myself some immediate insulin, or should i wait and see if
my BG comes down? i still had 1 unit IOB, so maybe there was some hope.
but nothing budged, and it was time to turn off my pump and prep for my
swim. i decided i would give myself a bolus to prevent my spiking on
the 0% basal (as usual) but then i would add in a correction factor.
since 1 unit brings me down around 50 points, i bolused 1 unit. then
when i saw no downward trend, i started drinking lots and lots of water. this worked very effectively. and by 1pm, when i was ready to leave for the pool, my BGs had come back into target range.
now, a disclaimer: this is my very first sunday going to the pool,
and i had been forewarned that it can be crazy crowed over the w/ends.
so, i was really afraid and apprehensive that i wouldnt be able to get
into a lane if there were 5 people already in each one, and i would have
to stand in line and wait for another swimmer to get out (as i’ve
stated before, 5 is the max amount of swimmers in each lane). now, as it
goes, and you may have noticed, i am on a specific time clock with my
swim prep, when i get out to test my BG, and how long i swim for, how
much i bolus for, etc etc etc. what if i got to the pool and it was too
crowded to swim? and i had been off my basal already for 2.5 hours. what
would i do? i needed a contingency plan and i really didnt have one. i
always have avoided swimming over the w/ends b/c i didnt want to get
stuck with this kind of problem.
when i was growing up, i would say to my grandmother: " i am afraid
to do X because what if X happens? " and my grandmother would say to me,
" ‘what if’ is the silliest thing to think about. stop projecting into a
future that hasnt happened yet!" sage advice.
and this is the exact same advice that eric has been giving me for a year now. and he does it almost every day! so i decided, F-it; i would just prep as best i could and go off to the
pool anyway. i would deal with whatever happened if and when it
happened.
so i did just that. i went anyway. and it turned out that my BG was
perfect, the pool was EMPTY, and i swam like a dolphin for 90 minutes.
it was wonderful. all that fear i had was for naught.
patience, determination, perseverence, and a little bit of courage made for a great swim!
here are the stats:
1:20 BG 105 (took 1.5 Gtabs)
2pm BG 100 (took 1/2 Gtab)
2:30 BG 97
3pm BG 85
and then i got to walk home and drink 2 of my favorite chocolate Boost Shakes. oh were they delicious!! they made it all worthwhile.
signing off,
DM
PS: sorry so long winded today.
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OVER-CROWDED POOL EXPERIMENT #1:
oh my was the pool packed today. in the beginning of my swim i was delegated to the “slow” lane b/c it was the only lane available. this was horrid; i had to pass each swimmer just b/c their feet were in my face. one after another. and i was afraid that when i got out of the pool to test my BG that i would loose my spot and wouldnt be able to continue swimming. but fate was on my side. all was well.
and then, all of a sudden, the pool was empty. everyone left. where did they all go? despite the 40 screaming children, the pool was empty. i had an entire lane all to myself. heaven.
had a great night last night. great targeted BGs throughout most of the evening and overnight. had a couple of lows, but nothing an Oreo couldnt fix 
.
i see my Endo this friday, and i’m going to get hooked up to my new G5 Dexcom. i hope it works for me. (i have mentioned endlessly how it has not been a success in the past, so we’ll have to see how it goes this time. i think i am going to try new sites, like my upper thigh b/c its probably the most meaty area and is not restricted by my bathing suit. has anyone used this area before??) i am also eager to find out my latest A1c. last one was 4.9%…pretty good for someone not using a cgm 
.
here are todays stats:
1:20 BG 121
2pm BG 120
2:30 BG 94
3pm BG 88
would have preferred to have started out a little lower, but i am very happy with todays success.
signing off,
DM
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Nice numbers today.
You dropped 33 points today, with no gtabs. For your body size, that’s about equal to 1 gram of glucose!
but isnt that a big drop? i have been having so much success with flat lines lately? am i going backwards in my progress?
I sent you an email about this. See if it makes sense.
If it makes sense, you should post it here for reference.
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maybe you should post it. i am pretty much senseless expressing the technical stuff the way that you do
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GAVE IN TO THE LOW BG TODAY EXPERIMENT #1:
nothing much to report today. only swam for 60 minutes due to a low BG that i was anxious over. but it was a good hard swim. relatively moderate pace. crowded lanes. very loud children.
my muscles were sore and tired today after the past 2 days of 90 minute swims. tomorrow will be a recovery day due to an appointment in the city.
not bad lows last night. i changed my dinner ICR again to give me even less insulin, so i think that helped to avoid bad crashes. am considering giving myself even less insulin, but am going to repeat last night’s ICR and see what happens. would like to establish a pattern before making another change. (i see my endo this friday) i did wake up this morning at 2am with a BG of 47. just corrected with 2.5 Gtabs and went back to sleep. at 4am i was 95, then at 6:50am i was 87 so i had some bfast.
when i shut my pump off at 11am, my BG was 85. i bolused .3 units. an hour later, i was 75; i took 1/2 gtab, tested again in 15 minutes and i was 69, so i took another 1/2. at 1:20 before jumping into the pool my BG was 100.
here are the stats:
1:20 BG 100 (took 1/2 Gtab)
2pm BG 91
2:30 BG 64 (got out of the pool and bolused 1.7 units for 3.5 hours off my pump)
3pm bolused 1.6 units for 50% of my 32 grm carbs chocolate shakes. yum.
eager to see how tonight goes with my new ICR ( 1:13 ) for dinnertime. will keep you informed. (and btw, before i began swimming, my ICR for dinner was 1:10 !!! )
signing off,
DM
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You dropped more than usual today.
I believe this is the first time you have gone swimming 3 days in a row. Is that right?
Successive days have more of an impact on your BG. Just make a note of it for next time. I think the 3 days in a row was a big factor today.
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i think you’re right. i may have done 3 days in a row before, but not for a while.
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MANY NEW EXPERIMENTS #1 :
started swimming sundays; so this week i swam 3 days in a row, hard and strong. phew, was i exhausted. frankly, i dont know how eric does what he does. there is no way that i could swim 7 days a week. last week i swam 5 days; thats 450 minutes of swimming, not counting the 1/2 hour it takes to speed walk to and from the pool. i think swimming more than that i would simply shoot myself.
aside from the usual easily correctable lows, i had told my body that i was no longer diabetic, b/c i barely needed any insulin at all. i kept crashing and munching on Gtabs just to keep everything in line. finally, i put myself on a TB of 95% thinking that that little bump down would curb the lows. nope. not enough. so i lowered my TB to 90% and left it on 24/7. seemed to help, but i could still go lower than that. the lows are exhausting, and frankly, i wish i had bought stock in whichever company makes those glucose tablets, 'cause i’m going through them like candy corn on Halloween.
the other experiment that i did was to change my ICR at dinnertime. i did this twice in a row, gradually decreasing the amount of insulin i was getting for my meals. tonight i will be testing out the 1:14 ICR for the first time. hopefully that will do the trick. i am tired of crashing 1-2 hours after dinner. thank god i love chocolate and Oreos and malt balls and Ovaltine. its just that after a while, i get kind of full, and there is no room in my tummy for anything else 
another thing i am trying out is giving myself less basal replacement insulin post swim. not anything majorly significant, just 15% less. so instead of giving myself 2 units to replace 4 hours off of all basal, i only gave myself 1.7 units to cover the 4 hours. we’ll see how that plays out.
when i make changes, i try to be as modest as possible. i just want to see if the tiny changes have any significance at all and to give me some idea where i should be headed. a little more here, a little less there…
i also took my husband’s suggestion (he is a former ultra marathon runner) and took 800 mg of Ibuprophin about 4 hours before swimming. it made the swim much more relaxing on my muscles and thus, the entire swim was very comfortable. i will deff repeat that again! worked like a charm. yahoo.
todays BGs were nothing special. did what i had to do and tried not to be too judgmental. would have prefered not dropping the 30 points in the second hour. but it is what it is, and it was what it was.
here are the stats:
1pm BG 119 (left for pool)
1:20 BG 127
2pm BG 133
2:30 BG 102
3pm BG 94 (bolused 1.7 units replacement basal for 4 hours off my pump)
3:30 – (bolused 1.6 units for 32 gms of re-fuel)
its 5:35pm now and my BG is 99 (i did, however have quite a bit of Peanut Butter without bolusing for it, though) (but i would much prefer 99 to 39 .)
i am eager to see how the night goes. there are 3 things going on at once, so maybe this is silly of me, but i will try and navigate my way through this and try and learn some helpful info.
- lowered basal ( 90% )
- lowered basal bolus after swim
- ICR change for dinnertime
wouldnt it be great if it all worked out perfectly (is there anything that is perfectly consistant with diabetes???)
signing out,
DM
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